


akamatos

by pipistrelle



Series: Ancient Greek Word of the Day [1]
Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Dancing, F/F, Fluff and Metaphors, Missing Scene, S4E6: A Tale Of Two Muses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 09:03:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20112574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pipistrelle/pseuds/pipistrelle
Summary: Akamatos: without sense of toil, hence untiring, unresting. A drabble of dancing practice during “A Tale of Two Muses”.





	akamatos

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to terpsikeraunos on tumblr, who gave kind permission for me to use their scholarship as silly fanfic prompts.
> 
> Also, while the dancing insurrection may have been Xena’s idea, the actual dance was supplied by Gabrielle, and no one shall ever convince me otherwise.

**ἀκάματος (akamatos): without sense of toil, hence, untiring, unresting; in Hom. always epithet of fire.**

* * *

Xena picks herself up with a grunt and brushes herself off as much as she can, which isn’t much. “At least this’ll scrub all the grit out of the cracks,” she sighs, staring down at the sand caked into all the pleats and crevices of her armor. “All right, show me that spin again.”

Gabrielle flits past on the tips of her new steel-toed boots, twirling her staff underhand so one end flirts with the brass rings woven into the leather of Xena’s skirt, _clink-clatter-clack_.

“It’d be easier without all that metal on, you know. Hard to be light and breezy when you’re wearing an arsenal.” 

“I don’t really do light and breezy,” Xena grumbles. She is, in fact, about as far from light and breezy as it’s possible to be. She’s hot, overburdened, sweaty, sticky, and _chafing_, and she’s starting to get cranky. Practicing dancing in the middle of the desert in the middle of the day was a brilliant way to avoid being detected, but only because no sane person would ever dream of doing it.

“I have to be able to do it in armor, it’s got to look like a military training exercise,” she reminds Gabrielle. “Now go over it again. It’s step, staff, step, spin —“

In demonstration Gabrielle plants one end of her staff and leaps, her skirt flaring as she twirls around with both feet in the air. It’s a version of the move Xena uses to kick in heads when she’s surrounded, but Gabrielle’s made it slower, more graceful. The sight of it, the violent thing repurposed, startles Xena into a smile. Gabrielle doesn’t notice. She seems to drift to the surface of the practice rock as gently as an autumn leaf and hardly touches down with a _click_ before she’s off again.

“Poor Xena, having trouble getting it down? Lila had that problem. She didn’t master this dance until she was almost eight.” _Click-click-clatter-click_. “Of course, most of the girls in Potidaea can do it by the time they’re six.”

Xena shifts her weight as sweat drips down her back, carving a track through grating sand. Without her noticing, her smile tightens to gritted teeth.

“Some of us had better things to do as children than stare at sheep and practice ridiculous dances all day long. I would learn it just fine if you would just _stand still_ long enough to show me.”

“Can’t show someone a dance by standing still, can you?” Gabrielle laughs, but she does at least slow down, which is an improvement. She’s barely even out of breath.

“How in Zeus’ name are you doing that?” Xena demands. “You haven’t stopped moving for two days.”

“It’s all the energy in this town, the emotions that aren’t being expressed. Can’t you feel it? Like a caged bird’s yearning for wild flight, for freedom! All that joy bottled up, it just makes me want to —“

“Focus,” Xena says. “If we’re going to let that joy out of the bottle we have to be able to teach those kids the steps. Now show me the bit with the staff again.”

Gabrielle pauses. It’s the first time she’s been motionless since they came to this muse-forsaken town, but for a second Xena doesn’t notice, because all the energy of motion is still there — in her foot half-raised, her gaze piercing as an arrow’s flight into the middle distance. She’s caught in the grip of some bit of poetry.

“Their joy is a cold, clear spring,” she declares, “blocked by a heavy stone, in the midst of the desert.”

Xena snorts. Gabrielle shakes herself back to earth and laughs at the look on Xena’s face. She jigs across the rock to Xena’s side and drops her staff, balancing it on the top of one foot. “You catch it in your right hand. Ready? One, two, three, four —“

The staff goes tumbling up. Xena snatches it easily out of the air, but to do it she takes her eyes off Gabrielle.

_Clack_! A steel-shod heel comes down. Before Xena can react Gabrielle gets a hand on her shoulder, leaps up, kisses her on the corner of the mouth and spins away like a whirling dervish, cackling like a mischievous naiad who’s just led a foolish traveler into a swamp.

“Gabrielle,” Xena sighs, leaning on the staff and trying not to focus on the way Gabrielle’s hips sway as she crosses her wrists above her head and whirls another turn around the rock. “We’re trying to convince them that dancing _isn’t_ going to lead to scandalous perversions, remember?” 

Gabrielle clicks to a stop with a final leap and a bow. Her grin, when she rises, almost makes Xena want to abandon the plan as unnecessary. Surely not even the dourest old man in the village could keep from dancing at that sight.

“Are we? Seems to me like a little scandalous perversion would do these people good.”

“Uncork the spring?” Xena suggests. It’s in Gabrielle’s smile, she thinks; the lightness, the clean joy that she’s always afraid will be gone some day, choked off, snuffed out. But that fear is always false. The water never runs dry, even in the desert. Even after Rome, even after Hope. These villagers with their skinflint god don’t stand a chance.

“Feed the flame of joy that never goes out,” Gabrielle agrees, sauntering back across the rock to take up position again. “We’ll remove the — how do you trap a fire?”

“Figure it out later. It’s hot, and Tara will have eloped with that scruffy boy by the time we get back.”

Gabrielle drops her staff onto the top of her foot and sinks into half a curtsy. Demure, modest, a simple country girl beginning a shepherd’s dance as old and respectable as the hills — and then she smiles. “Ready? One, and a-two, and —“


End file.
